
Deported Cuban mother separated from breastfeeding 1-year-old daughter, World News
HAVANA — Cuban mother Heidy Sanchez collapsed into tears as she recalled the moment last week when US immigration officials in Florida told her she would be deported and separated from her still-breastfeeding 1-year-old daughter.
"They told me to call my husband, that our daughter had to stay and that I would go," she told Reuters in an interview at a family member's home near the Cuban capital, Havana. "My daughter got nervous and agitated and began to ask for milk, but it didn't matter to them."
The US Department of Homeland Security told Reuters that Sanchez' statement was inaccurate and contradicted standard Immigration and Customs Enforcement protocol.
"Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with someone the parent designates," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed response late on Monday (April 28).
"In this case, the parent stated they wanted to be removed without the child and left the child in the care of a safe relative in the United States."
DHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for evidence that Sanchez had been offered the choice to take her child with her to Cuba.
Sanchez said she arrived in her home country hours after being detained, with no passport or identification and no documentation from the United States explaining the reason for her deportation.
The contradictions in Sanchez' case highlight concerns among civil rights advocates over the due process rights of immigrants during US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, a key platform of his 2024 election campaign.
Trump's administration on Monday touted the early results of the aggressive enforcement measures, highlighting a drop in illegal border crossings.
Democrats and civil rights advocates, however, have criticised his administration's tactics, including the cases of several US-citizen children recently deported with their parents. One of the children had a rare form of cancer, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Unlike those cases, Sanchez, who was surprised at a routine check-in at an ICE office in Tampa last Thursday, said she was given no choice but to leave behind her daughter, a US citizen.
She said officials separated her from her child, escorted her to a van, handcuffed her and later that day, deported her by air to Cuba alongside 81 others.
Sanchez, 44, had been under deportation orders since 2019 but was allowed to temporarily live and work in the United States as long as she regularly checked in with ICE.
During that time, she married a Cuban-born naturalised US citizen and had her first child in November of 2023.
Her husband sought legal residence in the US for Sanchez two years ago as a result of their marriage, but had yet to receive a response, she said.
Sanchez broke down several times during the interview with Reuters. She said she understood that ICE officials were "just doing their job" but said separating a mother from her breastfeeding infant was "unjust."
"I can't sleep, I can't rest," she said. "All I ask is that they reunite me again with my daughter."
The case underscores a sharp break in policy between the Trump and Biden administrations.
Under Biden, ICE officials were instructed to consider the impact of enforcement action on families.
Trump rescinded that guidance, which had prioritised the deportations of serious criminals. Instead, Trump broadened the scope of enforcement, including targeting migrants like Sanchez with standing deportation orders.
Sanchez, who said she had no criminal record, is now just a few hundred miles from her daughter in Florida but a world apart.
Worsening shortages of food, fuel and medicine on the communist-run island, just 90 miles (145 km) off Key West, have made life unbearable for many Cubans.
The crisis has spurred a record-breaking exodus from the island of over one million people, or upwards of 10 per cent off the population, a predicament Cuba blames on US sanctions that contribute to strangling an already inefficient state-run economy.
Sanchez said she now faced the "impossible" decision to remain apart from her infant daughter or bringing her to crisis-racked Cuba.
"Everybody knows the situation here," she said.
[[nid:717278]]
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Straits Times
26 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Ukrainian woman searches for husband lost in action amid conflict with Russia
Ms Mariia Pylnyk tries to learn anything she can about her husband from those released during prisoners of war swops. PHOTO: REUTERS CHERNIHIV, Ukraine - When gaunt Ukrainian soldiers dismount from buses as part of prisoner swops with Russia, Ms Mariia Pylnyk tries to find out anything she can about her missing husband from the freed men, and hopes, just maybe, that he will be among them. Holding up a photograph of Mr Dmytro Pylnyk, who was lost in action in early 2023, she has many questions. What happened to his unit when it was ambushed by Russian forces? Was he captured by Russia? Could he eventually be released? The mass prisoner swop in May was an opportunity for people like her to ask troops just out of Russian captivity about missing loved ones who they believe, or simply hope, are prisoners of war. The alternative is unthinkable. 'I hold out great hope that someone has heard something, seen something,' Ms Pylnyk, 29, told Reuters at a recent exchange in May, flanked by other relatives of those missing in action. 'My son and I are waiting for (his) dad to come home. Hope dies last. God willing, it'll all be okay and dad will come back.' Precise numbers for soldiers missing in action are not made public. For Ukrainians, and for Russians on the other side of the conflict, it can be hard to find out even basic information. Ms Pylnyk says she has written to government agencies and Russian authorities and learnt almost nothing. Ukrainian officials say more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been registered missing since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The majority are from the military but the figure also includes civilians. Another 12,000 have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or returned in exchanges. Mr Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Coordination Council that arranges prisoner swops from the Ukrainian side, said Russia had never notified Kyiv which soldiers it is holding prisoner. Ukraine collects that data by other means as best it can, he said. Ms Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened. 'Misfortune brought us together,' she said. 'After two years of this, we're like a family.' Last phone call Mr Pylnyk, an electrician by trade, was drafted into the army in late 2022. He phoned home often so that his wife did not worry but last called on their son Artem's third birthday on Feb 27, 2023. He was deployed from Kharkiv region towards Bakhmut, a small city that later fell to Russian forces after fierce fighting. His unit's convoy was caught in a Russian ambush, Ms Pylnyk said she had learnt. 'The guys ran any which way,' she said, citing conversations with commanders who told her 41 soldiers were missing in action. Two were captured and have since been released. One, who was freed in an exchange at Easter and had lost both his arms, was unable to share any valuable information, she said. The second refused to talk. The pace of prisoner swops has increased in the last month. Ukraine and Russia each released 1,000 prisoners in a three-day exchange in May, the only tangible outcome of direct talks in Istanbul. A prisoner swop of under-25s on June 9 was the first in a series of exchanges also expected to include each side repatriating the remains of thousands. Ms Mariia Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened. PHOTO: REUTERS Ms Pylnyk has given her son's DNA to the authorities so that if Mr Pylnyk is confirmed killed in action they will be notified. 'We all understand that this is war and anything is possible. But to this day, I don't believe it and I don't feel that he is dead. I feel like he's alive and God willing he'll return,' she said. No signal to call She lives with Artem, now five, in Pakul, a village in the northern Chernihiv region that was briefly occupied by Russians. She has not told Artem his father is missing in action. 'He knows that dad is a soldier, dad is a good man, dad is at work and just doesn't have any signal to call,' she said. She takes comfort from seeing families reunited and never allows herself to cry in front of her son. She used to work in a shop, but Artem has often been ill. The angst of the last two years have taken their toll on her health too. She receives state support. Ms Pylnyk has vowed to find her husband but has often not had time to attend prisoner swops while looking after their son. 'Only a weakling can give up, you know, throw up their hands and say that's it, he's not there,' she said, adding that she was very emotional when she attended the big exchange in May. 'When I was there, the fighting spirit awoke in me that I needed. I have to do this. Who else will do it but me?' REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Straits Times
30 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Palestinians' dangerous ordeal to reach Israeli-approved aid
A Palestinian man displays the aid supplies he received from the U.S.-supported Gaza Relief Organization, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled Palestinians carry aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled A Palestinian man, next to a child, displays the aid supplies he received from the U.S.-supported Gaza Relief Organization, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled A Palestinian carries a sack as he and others gather to collect aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled A Palestinian carries a box with aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled GAZA/CAIRO - When university professor Nizam Salama made his way to a southern Gaza aid point last week, he came under fire twice, was crushed in a desperate crowd of hungry people and finally left empty handed. Shooting first started shortly after he left his family's tent at 3 a.m. on June 3 to join crowds on the coast road heading towards the aid site in the city of Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new U.S.-based organization working with private military contractors to deliver aid in Gaza. The second time Salama came under fire was at Alam Roundabout close to the aid delivery site, where he saw six dead bodies. Twenty-seven people were killed that day by Israeli fire on aid seekers, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel said its forces had shot at a group of people they viewed as a threat and the military is investigating the incident. At the aid delivery site, known as SDS 1, queues snaked through narrow cage-like fences before gates were opened to an area surrounded by sand barriers where packages of supplies were left on tables and in boxes on the ground, according to undated CCTV video distributed by GHF, reviewed by Reuters. Salama said the rush of thousands of people once the gates opened was a "death trap." "Survival is for the stronger: people who are fitter and can make it earlier and can push harder to win the package," he said. "I felt my ribs going into each other. My chest was going into itself. My breath...I couldn't breathe. People were shouting; they couldn't breathe at all." Reuters could not independently verify all the details of Salama's account. It matched the testimonies of two other aid seekers interviewed by Reuters, who spoke of crawling and ducking as bullets rattled overhead on their way to or from the aid distribution sites. All three witnesses said they saw dead bodies on their journeys to and from the Rafah sites. A statement from a nearby Red Cross field hospital confirmed the number of dead from the attack near the aid site on June 3. Asked about the high number of deaths since it began operations on May 26, GHF said there had been no casualties at or in the close vicinity of its site. The Israeli military didn't respond to detailed requests for comment. Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters on Sunday that Hamas was "doing its best" to provoke troops, who "shoot to stop the threat" in what he called a war zone in the vicinity of the aid sites. He said military investigations were underway "to see where we were wrong." Salama, 52, had heard enough about the new system to know it would be difficult to get aid, he said, but his five children - including two adults, two teenagers and a nine-year-old - needed food. They have been eating only lentils or pasta for months, he said, often only a single meal a day. "I was completely against going to the aid site of the American company (GHF) because I knew and I had heard how humiliating it is to do so, but I had no choice because of the bad need to feed my family," said the professor of education administration. In total, 127 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid from GHF sites in almost daily shootings since distribution under the new system began two weeks ago, Gaza's health authority said on Monday. The system appears to violate core principles of humanitarian aid, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major humanitarian organisation. He compared it to the Hunger Games, the dystopian novels that set people to run and fight to the death. "A few will be rewarded and the many will only risk their lives for nothing," Egeland said. "International humanitarian law has prescribed that aid in war zones should be provided by neutral intermediaries that can make sure that the most vulnerable will get the relief according to needs alone and not as part of a political or military strategy," he said. GHF did not directly respond to a question about its neutrality, replying that it had securely delivered enough aid for more than 11 million meals in two weeks. Gaza's population is around 2.1 million people. FAMINE RISK Israel allowed limited U.N.-led aid operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave, where experts a week earlier warned a famine looms. The U.N. has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean." Separate to the U.N. operation, Israel allowed GHF to open four sites in Gaza, bypassing traditional aid groups. The GHF sites are overseen by a U.S. logistics company run by a former CIA official and part-owned by a Chicago-based private equity firm, with security provided by U.S. military veterans working for a private contractor, two sources have told Reuters. An Israeli defence official involved in humanitarian matters told Reuters GHF's distribution centres were sufficient for around 1.2 million people. Israel and the United States have urged the U.N. to work with GHF, which has seen a high churn of top personnel, although both countries deny funding it. Reuters has not been able to establish who provides the funding for the organisation, but reported last week that Washington was considering an Israeli request to put in $500 million. GHF coordinates with the Israeli army for access, the foundation said in reply to Reuters questions, adding that it was looking to open more distribution points. It has paused then resumed deliveries several times after the shooting incidents, including on Monday. Last week, it urged the Israeli army to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations. GHF said the U.N. was failing to deliver aid, pointing to a spate of recent lootings. Israel says the U.N.'s aid deliveries have previously been hijacked by Hamas to feed their own militants. Hamas has denied stealing aid and the U.N. denies its aid operations help Hamas. The U.N., which has handled previous aid deliveries into Gaza, says it has over 400 distribution points for aid in the territory. On Monday it described an increasingly anarchic situation of looting and has called on Israel to allow more of its trucks to move safely. SHOOTING STARTS Salama and four neighbours set out from Mawasi, in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday for the aid site, taking two hours to reach Rafah, which is several miles away near the Egyptian border. Shooting started early in their journey. Some fire was coming from the sea, he said, consistent with other accounts of the incidents. Israel's military controls the sea around Gaza. His small group decided to press on. In the dark, the way was uneven and he repeatedly fell, he said. "I saw people carrying wounded persons and heading back with them towards Khan Younis," he said. By the time they reached Alam Roundabout in Rafah, about a kilometre from the site, there was a vast crowd. There was more shooting and he saw bullets hitting nearby. "You must duck and stay on the ground," he said, describing casualties with wounds to the head, chest and legs. He saw bodies nearby, including a woman, along with "many" injured people, he said. Another aid seeker interviewed by Reuters, who also walked to Rafah on June 3 in the early morning, described repeated gunfire during the journey. At one point, he and everyone around him crawled for a stretch of several hundred meters, fearing being shot. He saw a body with a wound to the head about 100 meters from the aid site, he said. The Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 184 patients on June 3, the majority of them injured by gunshots, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, calling it the highest number of weapon-wounded patients the hospital had ever received in a single incident. There were 27 fatalities. "All responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site," the statement said. When Salama finally arrived at the aid point on June 3, there was nothing left. "Everyone was standing pulling cardboard boxes from the floor that were empty," he said. "Unfortunately I found nothing: a very, very, very big zero." Although the aid was gone, ever more people were arriving. "The flood of people pushes you to the front while I was trying to go back," he said. As he was pushed further towards where GHF guards were located, he saw them using pepper spray on the crowd, he said. GHF said it was not aware of the pepper spray incident but said its workers used non-lethal measures to protect civilians. "I started shouting at the top of my lungs, brothers I don't want anything, I just want to leave, I just want to leave the place," Salama said. "I left empty-handed... I went back home depressed, sad and angry and hungry too," he said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Straits Times
30 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Taiwan indicts president's aide on charge of spying for China
The suspects were recruited by two people previously working for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. PHOTO: REUTERS Prosecutors in Taiwan have indicted two former officials, one of whom worked closely with the president, for leaking national security information to China, as Taipei pushes back against Beijing's growing efforts to undermine the self-ruled democracy. Prosecutors in the capital brought charges against a former political aide working in President Lai Ching-te's office and a secretary who previously worked for former foreign minister Joseph Wu, according to a statement from the Taipei District Prosecutors Office on June 10 . Both are Taiwan nationals. Under the Classified National Security Information Protection Act, prosecutors are seeking prison sentences of at least five and nine years respectively. The suspects were recruited by two people previously working for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates for Taiwan's recognition as a sovereign country separate from China. The recruiters had allegedly collected national security information for China in exchange for rewards amounting to NT$6 million (S$257,760) and NT$2.2 million each, prosecutors said. Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of more than 18½ y ears for one of the former DPP officials, and eight years for the other. One of the suspects is also under investigation for building an espionage network in Taiwan. Beijing has in recent years steadily increased its military and political pressure on Taiwan, which China sees as part of its territory to be brought under its control, by force if necessary. The number of Chinese fighter jets crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait – an unofficial boundary separating the two sides – has more than doubled from the same period a year before, according to the Defence Ministry in Taipei. China has also carried out at least seven sets of military drills around Taiwan since Mr Lai took office in May 2024, a pace not seen in previous years. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.